There are minor discrepancies between these vote totals and those given in other sources. Neither Storms nor Dodge's The National Statesman reference their figures. Some sources for minor party vote totals include write-in votes from states where the party was not on the ballot, and some sources do not. Some sources use official, certified vote toals, whereas other sources use preliminary reports.

Differences in reported votes of one hundred or less probably result from these differences in counting and should be disregarded. Differences of more than one hundred may indicate typographical errors or mistakes in transcribing data and should be investigated; please point them out to the editor.

Data 1872 - 1972 from Roger Storms (1972)"Partisan Prophets;" data 1972 - present from reports in "The National Statesman" It is important to keep in mind that vote totals are reported vote totals; many third-party votes, especially write-in votes, are disregarded by election officials.

Buttons shown which are not dated and which illustrate candidates which ran in more than one election may not be shown in the correct year.

Storms does not give the number of ballot-qualified states for some years.

From a huge service custom made for presentation to Dow in the 1880's. Most pieces remain in his Maine Mansion, now a historical site, but a few have been "liberated" over the years and are now owned by collectors.

1884

President: John P. St. John (KS) adventurer, lawyer, military officer, Republican governor

D.I. Herdon, in his "Centennial History of Arkansas" (1922, p.331) says that there was an "American Prohibition Party" faction at the 1884 convention which nominated Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas and John A. Conant of Connecticutt. Storms does not mention this, and the Pomery/Conant vote total is not known.

The Free-Silver Prohibition Candidates, Bentley and Southgate, ran in some of the same states as did the official Johnson & Levering ticket using the name "National Party."

Printed, celluloid-covered, "cello," lapel pins such as these became popular in the campaign of 1896. Most earlier campaign portrait buttons were made by fastening actual photographs on metal or cardboard onto a pin or stud. The stamped metal images, "medals," commonly used in pre-1896 campaigns were largely discontinued after the 1890s.

The jugate Wooley & Metcalfe pin at upper left was issued by three other political parties in 1900, substituting only the photographs of their own candidates: (Republicans) McKinley and Roosevelt, (Democrats) Bryan and Stevenson, and (Socialists) Debs and Harriman.The only other election in which at least four parties used an identical design was that of 1912, when the Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Bull Moose all issued buttons of the same design. Thanks to Robert Fratkin and The Keynoter for this factoid!

Richard Winger points out (Ballot Access News 24(1):6) that, in 1916, the Landrith/Hanly Prohibition ticket "spoiled" the chances of Republican nominee Charles Evans Hughes and threw the presidential election to Wilson. Winger says "That is the most fascinating example of 'spoiling' in U.S. history. It was the second time the Prohibition Party had tipped a presidential election against the Republicans," the first time having been the defeat of Blaine in 1884.
As a consequence, "Republicans in Congress passed the Constitutional amendment in 1917 to impose nationwide prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The proposal had been introduced in every Congress starting in 1875, but had never come close to passing by the necessary two-thirds majority. But the Republicans, having lost 2 presidential elections to the Prohibition Party, decided to end that problem once and for all, by accepting the amendment and thus killing the rationale for the Prohibition Party to continue to exist."
The Prohibition Party, although it has never came close to winning a national election, nevertheless achieved its primary legislative goal by "spoiling" presidential elections. Never believe that we are "too small to matter."

Increasingly repressive ballot access laws after 1920 made it difficult for third parties to campaign effectively. Storms says (p.39): "The two [dominant] parties wanted to make sure that there would never again be an outpouring of humanitarian reform comparable to that of the Progressive Era. From then on, they could be in the comfortable position of joining hands in a conspiracy of silence on the issues that really mattered. The technique was to create ballot laws which were so stringent that a dissenting group would have to expend all of its resources obtaining a place on the ballot and [would] have nothing left with which to campaign."

Storms credits (p. 48) Babson and Moorman with changing the philosophical emphasis of the Prohibition Party from progressive to conservative, but the change was neither abrupt nor clear-cut. The party platform continued to include progressive planks, and still does, but the party leadership has chosen more and more to emphasize conservative planks.

A private, invitational conference of (some) Prohibition National Committeemen, held at the chairman's home in June, 2003, recommended then-chairman Earl F. Dodge for president and Texas national committeeman Howard Lydick for vice-president. These candidacies were explicitly rejected by the 34th quadrennial nominating convention of the Prohibition Party, held at Fairfield Glade, Tennessee in September .

The button at upper left is a vendor button. All others were sold by Dodge or were offered to donors as incentives. It is doubtful that any of Dodge's buttons were given away as campaign items.

This button appeared in s dealer's catalog in 2013, incorrectly attributed to "hopefulls, Prohibition 2004" Nothing is known of its provenance.

The LH button was issued by the Prohibition National Committee and was distributed during the campaign; the center and RH buttons are vendor buttons.

Preliminary figures show a total of 1896 votes -- the best showing for the Prohibition Party since l988. Louisiana provided 1512 of those, and Colorado (on the "Concerns of People" line) provided 324.

Dodge and Lydick, the unendorsed independents in Colorado, received 140 votes, fewer than half as many as the official Prohibition Party ticket. This is an unequivocal repudiation by the voters of Earl F. Dodge as a Prohibition Party spokesman. (Dodge and Lydick failed to get on the ballot in any other state.)

Probably, ballot position had much to do with the large vote in Louisiana: We were at the top of the second column. In Colorado, we were about half way down the column (Dodge & Lydick were five positions below "Concerns of People.")

Third-party movements tend to appeal to members of specific cultural, social, or economic subgroups within the larger American population. Some of this data on Prohibition Party leaders is given in the preceding list of candidates. The following table gives their educational backgrounds; where and how long people attend school is one determinant (or reflection) of their philosophical frameworks and value systems.

The names are given in their order of nomination (names of vice-presidential candidates are italicized). Some individuals ran more than once, and for both vice-president and for president in different years -- only the first nomination is listed.